The Fraction on a Diary's Page
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Some things are within their control, but much is not. The world is too big to fit into the pages of a diary after all.
1. arithmetic

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #016 - arithmetic).

Title is after a joke from the Digimon Adventure ZeroTwo dub. One of the characters misinterprets a date as a fraction, and then thinks the other two are going on a date to do fractions (which he can't fathom because why do fractions on a date? In fact, why do homework at all XD).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _I. arithmetic_

Limits: they were things he could control  
when the wild wings stayed ever far  
from his grasp – too far for him to grasp  
and wield as his righted sword:  
a sword his blood had put in future's wake  
and then denied.

Words: those were his limits, the chains he used,  
wrapped around those looser powers so they stayed  
in his hands. Words: in chains that made solid  
an intangible thing.

Limited: yes, they were limited  
but still strong: power-packed arrows flying  
with the swift-spoken words that fell  
from his lips –

All of those complexities that came with magic  
were stripped away by giving them words:  
an incantation, a name.


	2. cave

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #005 - encouraging).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _II. cave_

He was far from the sun: cold, shadowed  
in the face of the moon that gave birth  
to his name, where he'd thought he'd be  
forever more

But then the sun did come upon him  
suddenly: all too close –  
his hands were burnt a bit  
before he could stay comfortably close

And then it was a cold day  
without: those days the sun was gone  
and he'd search endlessly for that sun  
to bring back to his sky again.


	3. false

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #007 - warlike).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _III. false_

Lying, cheating, stealing…all of that was as easy  
as breathing a denial to her, because she kept  
a noble name throughout, thieving through life

But she had a honesty in her.  
When it wasn't her life, her wellbeing  
or a need for wealth that had been engrained  
into her  
from the streets: a hard life that had shaped her to be

But even then, she wasn't a woman who walked  
in glove and gown and mask  
through the world – she had places  
and times…where she could be herself

And not alone.


	4. cough

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #006 - harsh).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _IV. cough_

Wounds, sicknesses –  
all of those were stabbing reminders  
of his mortality  
and the humanity he refused to lose

But that was fine with him:  
He could have a private world  
with his friends, in he castle,  
without the rest of the world

And not have to hide  
that laughing human child  
beneath a demon's face

At least for now.  
Perhaps one day the time would come  
when this mortality  
would defeat, or be slain

But for now, why not let the happy child  
run a little more?


	5. destroy

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #001 - malicious).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _V. destroy_

Not everyone's out to destroy the world.  
The world screams anyway,  
in panic, as its doom approaches

Because doom isn't an easy thing  
to keep locked away.

Like the devil, it slips through the cracks,  
through cage bars, through clouds  
through which even the sun  
can't shine.

They seem like innocent things  
at first, but they call his gaze  
from the hellfire lands, and it comes:  
doom on its black horses with clomping hooves,  
unwanted, unbidden  
but unstoppable too.

They don't ask for the end of the world  
but it comes anyway. They don't ask for destruction  
but death's scent wafts through.

They're not out to destroy the world  
but they need to be stopped anyway.


	6. trinket

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #019 - kitty).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _VI. trinket_

She's cute, but she doesn't belong in a demon's castle.  
She's the pretty teddy-bear who'll be chewed  
by the rabid dog as its chew-toy: stuffed  
in the meat grinder and unrecognisable.

It doesn't even matter if she's cute  
because who will look. She's the angel  
of her own gloom, her own ugly demise.

She's cute, and it's just another thing  
that doesn't fit. The bed is spacious  
but the boy is too bright, too full of smiles.  
He's too much of a fool to be a demon  
and yet he is, and she's not his chew-toy  
after all, but a companion and friend.

He's the big friendly giant and she's relieved  
but she doesn't belong in a demon's castle  
and neither does he.


	7. survival

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #021 - peace).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _VII. survival_

They've no hope of halting the march of the Gods  
who already march, or the curse that already runs  
through his future veins. He tries to sneak on through  
but the dues are always demanded, always paid –  
He's not wrong, but still, he winds up being the one  
to pay.

He cares. Of course he cares, for this boy  
who is his blood, his child, in a future that no longer is  
and it no longer is because of those Gods, and because  
he needs to beat them, he needs to live.

To do that, he needs to cut that boy in half  
and then put him back together again.  
The three of them will die, then be reborn  
as one and live.


	8. lost

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 - poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #015 - competition).

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page**  
 _VIII. lost_

They are three lost children in his world.

They march like adventurers,  
draw their swords like warriors  
but they quake in their boots  
and their arrows are marshmallow-tipped.

It can't be helped. Children are children:  
young and inexperienced and flies  
caught in his spider web.

Children can be such awfully  
dangerous seeds if left to grow.

They are three children in his world  
and children grow, but not here,  
not in the world of dreams  
where only the darkness  
of eternity glows.

There are three children in his world  
and they're doomed to wander, lost,  
forever as they march on,  
thinking they can advance,  
thinking they can level up  
and find the final boss  
and the endgame.

There is no endgame. Rather  
there are three children in a cage  
and he is the gaoler.


	9. stained

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #002 – black)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _IX. stained_

His hair is black and his heart  
is equally so. His name  
a sliver of white  
in the night sky.

He's got a tar-stained legacy  
and tar-stained blades.  
No doubt his blood is equally  
stained with black  
like his lord, his hallways,  
the scorch marks of magic  
in the court…

But now it's different.  
It's messier, like a breath of fresh air  
but brighter too: cracks in the walls  
he'd plugged with dirt and sin  
long ago.

It shouldn't matter. They're demons.  
They're supposed to be disgraced:  
smeared in mud  
and that's okay.

Still, it's not a world  
of monochrome  
anymore.


	10. cursed

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #011 – condemned)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _X. cursed_

It's not fair that his life  
is cut short  
when he's just a child  
trying to get by  
in this world.

He's not the one who's covered in blood  
and grime and the ashes of the dead  
cremated by the sun above.

He's not the one who's banished his sword  
without a cause, or thrown his magic about  
without pause.

He barely has any to speak of, really.  
He's a pitiful little pawn  
in more ways than one.

Still, it's not fair.  
He may be abandoned on the streets.  
A failure.  
He's still here, though, isn't he?  
He's alive.  
He deserves to live.

But still others don't agree.  
Even when he jumps through one hoop  
of fire, there's a curse  
on his name, waiting  
with hands around  
his throat.


	11. friends

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #023 – support)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XI. friends_

For a long time now  
he hasn't been alone.

They're a family now.  
Different people  
but it's all the same:  
they're still a family.  
A mishmash of people.  
Little misfits of the world  
they say. That's fine.  
They gravitate together  
anyway.

Their predecessors were alone  
and that worked for them  
but they lost. They lost  
and they, the successors,  
have persevered, have won  
standing together  
when they had the best chance of all  
to stand alone.

They faced each other on the battlefield  
and what a rarity that wad, but still  
they fought together, against their  
common enemy  
side by side.

And when they drifted off in adulthood, alone,  
they gravitated back together, with new family members  
growing on.


	12. foil

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #008 – annoying)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XII. foil_

It would be nice if they could get along  
without the constant clashes

But it would never happen.  
It didn't matter who they were  
because of how they'd been born  
and they carried that bad blood  
between, always, them.

It wasn't fair  
that they could have been such good  
friends, otherwise  
but they can't be friends at all.  
It wasn't fair  
that they had to live  
in constant enmity  
and fear.

It wasn't fair  
that they could  
try and get along  
and yet still know  
one would die  
at the other's  
hands.

It wasn't fair  
that there was no way  
to have a happy ending  
for them all.


	13. riches

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #020 – orange)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XIII. riches_

She wanted to strike gold.  
She wound up with coal instead  
or so she thought.

Instead, there was a sun on the horizon.  
It rose, it fell,  
it painted the sky a rainbow  
of colours, that she'd thought  
she'd left behind.

But colours aren't enough.  
The rainbow's not enough  
because she knows  
there's no pot of gold  
at the end of such rainbows.

She can't go chasing them.  
She chooses one colour.  
Of course it's gold.

She sets off on her quest  
searching for gold.

She swung once, and instead of gold  
or coal, she'd gotten a burst of colour  
and flavour, but she can't afford that  
again: she'd lost almost a year.

It was an all-expenses paid trip  
but still, she'd lost that year.  
She didn't have coal  
but she didn't have gold either  
and she's chosen  
this time.

Rainbows don't last  
and she can't distract herself again  
from the gold.


	14. hospitality

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #014 – crib)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XIV. hospitality_

They're all wanderers in this world:  
poor pilgrims  
dragging a teddy-bear along:  
their finest treasure.

There's a littler of pups by the wayside.  
They stay there.  
There's water in the sky  
but it's too far away  
and wrapped in their dusty, smelly  
clothes is only enough meat and bone for one

Or three quarters, or half. It depends  
on how long they've been walking  
and how many stray bits of food they've found  
before a belt.  
And sometimes  
they get the belt instead  
and they weep.  
Their empty stomachs weep too.

So the litters of pups stay there.  
They're a luxury kids like them  
can't afford

And there are too many  
kids like them. Even each other  
they can't afford.


	15. demon

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #004 – cruel)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XV. demon_

They're the demons in fairy-tales:  
the cruel ones, the ones who curse the world  
and eat little kids and drink the blood  
and burn the sky in flames  
and themselves black as night

But he's too bright for that: he's fair  
and hair like the sun and smiles,  
all smiles, even when he's about to cry  
in shame or pain.

What demon feels shame?  
What demon smiles  
except to scorn their prey  
or gloat their victory?

What demon cries when a tomato's crushed  
underfoot, or under cart?  
What demon pleas for their prey  
to be free, instead of bound  
or dead?

But he's not a demon always. He's an orphan child  
hungry, once starved, and alone,  
always alone so he craves  
them close. Not swords  
or chains, or magic spells  
or other worlds, or blood or gore  
or war.

He wants a family.  
He wants a family.  
He wants a place in this world  
that's his  
that he can call his own.


	16. war

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #013 – hate)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XVI. war_

Was it too naïve a thought  
that angels and demons  
could get along?

They fought for a century,  
brought down the heaven to earth  
and dragged hell up  
until the sky, so far from it once,  
burned.

Was it too naïve a thought  
that priests and demons  
could get along?

They fought for a century,  
washed the dry cracked earth  
with holy water, and stuck crosses  
through their rotten hearts.

The legends get mixed up somewhere  
along the way. The humans hunt  
demons with horns  
on their heads  
and angels with wings  
growing out of their backs.  
There are no such demons  
or angels.  
Only the priests insist  
on wearing their tell-tale robes.

That doesn't change the war.  
That doesn't change the bad blood  
between them all.

It just means they can  
shake hands with their mortal enemies  
and never know.


	17. sentence

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #017 – army)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XVII. sentence_

They fell one by one.

From a garden of flowers they became  
a single, lone rose  
braving the gales  
and they had to brave the gales  
because they were finished if they fell.

They couldn't fall  
though they knew they'd inevitably  
fall.

They had do something else, then, something  
that meant they could go on fighting  
after they fall.

They cast their curse. They bid their curse  
to be cast by the Gods, and they cast it  
with their blood, with their white feathers  
painted red amidst the dirt.

A death sentence they'd already wrought  
but at least, in vain, their deaths were not.


	18. flood

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #025 – drip)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XVIII. flood_

The smallest drop of water could change  
the course of an entire river

And that was destiny,  
that was the intricate webs of strings  
that made up fate.

A small change: a boy trying to prove himself  
and coming across another boy trying  
to prove himself as well.

They meet.  
And, through them, gods meet  
and the drop is spilt.

Rased never thought she'd be protecting the devil  
she's cursed, but here she was.

A demon never thought he'd be fighting  
on the same side as a priest.  
A knight never thought she'd be fighting  
on the same side of a priest.

That's another drop of water  
in this flood: a stray night searching  
for a treasure, and finds a child instead.

Within coal is a diamond  
in the rough, and beneath that  
the most beautiful and sharp  
jewel in this earth.

It's out of control power inside a child.  
It'll stay out of control in a demon's world  
but that child's dragged in a priest with a god  
and a knight, and even won a demon's heart

And, unknowingly, assembled an army  
against that beast  
for when it wakes.


	19. freedom

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #022 – zephyr)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XIX. freedom_

There were too many divisions in this world.  
Too many rules. Maybe this treaty  
was the thin sheet that would buffer  
their chance to change that.

A fledgling priest and a fledgling demon:  
together they spell doom, except  
maybe they won't. Maybe they'll spell  
salvation.

There are challenges on the horizon:  
bad blood a thousand years old  
and a god and a curse  
about to bloom

But they're children  
and the resilience of children  
is a remarkable thing  
to behold.

They may be caught in that net of old  
or they may grow wings and fly  
as hoped.


	20. karma

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #003 – nasty)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XX. karma_

It's unfair that he's paying for sins  
he hasn't even done: it's not his life  
he's paying for, not his name  
that's cursed –

But that's just it: it is his name  
and because it is, he has to carry it  
all his life

And what a short life  
it is. A child and already ripped  
in two, and the gods  
will tear him even more

And they're not even his sins  
to be borne.

He bears them though.  
The sins of the father  
are the sins of the son  
even if he doesn't know  
his father, or the sins  
or anything of this at all.

He dashes around the streets like a mouse  
and doesn't know the price  
he owes, and the collectors  
are coming for him soon.


	21. fate

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #012 – special)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XXI. fate_

He's just an orphan child drifting  
from place to place in the south,  
picking up scraps along the way  
until he can make his home.

In the end, his home  
is with the rats,  
with the thieves.  
They're the town's rats,  
they say, but at least  
they're family  
he sees.

Drifting alone, or drifting together…  
He'd much rather drift together  
with a roof over his head  
and always something  
in his belly  
because they share.

Sometimes he would have had a feast  
when alone, but never now:  
they always share

But he'd trade every feast in the world  
for this companionship.

Still, something's not quite right.  
He's not complete. There's something  
more out there:

A castle in his dreams  
for him.


	22. script

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #024 – writing)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XXII. script_

Their tale had been written long ago  
by someone else, and they could only struggle  
in those threads.

For the longest time, they didn't even know  
but then they learnt: teasing glimpses  
amidst the shadows of their past

And now the future is tinged  
with even darker shadows, that wait  
to snatch them up.  
The climax fast approaches  
and their webs  
are still strong

They fight; they think they're fighting  
to escape that web, but who can say  
what that one and only future of theirs  
really is, except the writer.  
It's a forest, after all, and only the one who  
painted the picture knows  
how many trees  
he's placed there.

The future they fight for,  
and want,  
and the one that's been chosen  
for them…  
They may be different things  
or they may  
be the same.


	23. ill-fitting

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #010 – zany)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XXIII. ill-fitting_

All those etiquette lessons  
didn't mesh with him at all.

It was like he was a fairy  
and they'd make him a fraud.  
A fairy didn't roar like a tiger,  
didn't snap their jaws like a shark,  
didn't burn the earth like a demon…

And well, wasn't that the problem?  
They were trying to turn a little orphan boy  
like him, into a demon

And there just wasn't a demon  
in him

(awake, because, unknown to him  
it slumbered, waiting  
for its time.)


	24. change

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #018 – breath)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XXIV. change_

He never thought his life would change  
so drastically

Except it did.

A typhoon blew in  
and took it all apart.

It didn't matter if his knight  
in black armour had come,  
or not; his life would have changed  
either way.

If it wasn't the demons, then the guards…  
His time in that precautious shelter had come  
to an end.

At least here, where he could breathe freely  
in his home: a place he could call his own  
that no-one could take away…

He did miss them, but he didn't belong.  
It was a good end  
for all.


	25. home

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f1 – poetry collection, and for the 100 Lists Challenge, 25s list 3 (prompt for this poem is #009 – abroad)

* * *

 **The Fraction on a Diary's Page  
** _XXV. home_

He'd left more than once  
but he'd found his way back:  
home.

It so quickly  
became his home.

A castle that was too big  
for him alone, so he filled it  
instead of downsizing  
because it was his  
and neither one of them  
had to change  
to keep as is.


End file.
